Paul McCartney had a special friend looking in on him, even as he battled a roaring infection that forced the rare cancellation of a series of concerts. Ringo Starr, McCartney’s treasured former Beatles bandmate, was in constant contact with his ill friend, and from the first.

“I spoke to him, actually, while he was in the hospital,” Starr tells Access Hollywood, laughing. “Not knowing the time, I just sort of dialed. He picked up, and we said ‘hi,’ and he said he was doing OK.”

Since, Starr has kept in touch via text messages as his former bandmate made a slow but steady recovery. On a recent night, while the affable drummer continued his own All-Starr Band dates, McCartney and his wife Nancy even joined Starr’s wife Barbara Bach, Bach’s sister and her husband Joe Walsh for dinner.

“They all say he’s doing good,” Starr adds, and indeed McCartney has rescheduled the slate of postponed shows that followed his illness.

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